Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The San Francisco Giants, backed by
owners from Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and
Intel Corp., are bringing Silicon Valley knowhow to bear as they
take on the Texas Rangers in the World Series.

Under former Microsoft General Counsel Bill Neukom, who
took over as managing general partner in 2008, the team is
increasingly using technology to hone players’ skills and draw
more fans. The Giants also put a bigger emphasis on pitching
after years of relying on Barry Bonds’s home runs.

The Giants use motion-sensor suits to help evaluate
throwing and hitting mechanics and a specially outfitted
pitching machine that shoots different-colored balls at more
than 100 miles per hour (160 kph) to help batters overcome blind
spots. The team also is the first to use software that sets
ticket prices based on supply and demand, similar to airlines or
hotels. Such innovations, along with players’ raw talent and a
$357 million waterfront ballpark, have helped boost the club’s
value almost fivefold since the ownership group took over.

“The point is to be restless about where technology can
help us on the baseball side and on the business side,” Neukom,
also the Giants chief executive officer, said in an interview in
the team’s offices at AT&T Park. The Giants got an early lead in
the series last night, beating the Rangers 11-7 in game one.

Franchise’s Value

The ownership group, called San Francisco Baseball
Associates LP, bought the Giants for $100 million in 1992,
saving them from moving to Florida. The team is now worth $483
million, making them the ninth-most-valuable franchise among the
30 clubs in Major League Baseball, according to Forbes magazine.
The Giants also own a third of Comcast Sports Net Bay Area, the
cable channel that carries their games.

The Giants’ backers, who get seats between home plate and
the dugout along the third-base line, include Arthur Rock, a
former Intel chairman and Apple Inc. director; Yahoo board
member Arthur Kern and the company’s former president, Jeff
Mallett; Cisco executive Dan Scheinman; and venture capitalist
Paul Wythes. Hewlett-Packard Co. co-founder William Hewlett was
an owner before his 2001 death.

“We’re talking about some of the premier guys in Silicon
Valley,” said Larry Baer, the club’s president and chief
operating officer. In addition to the technology industry
veterans, the 31 owners include investor Charles Johnson,
chairman of Franklin Resources Inc., a mutual-fund company in
San Mateo, California.

Monetary Boost

Reaching the World Series is worth “several millions of
dollars” in additional revenue, Baer said, without elaborating.
About 4,000 new season ticket applications have been received by
the club since the beginning of September, when the team began
its push toward clinching the 21st National League title in its
127-year history. The Giants haven’t won a World Series since
moving to San Francisco from New York in 1958.

“The real benefit is 2011, where you can drive season
tickets, where you can drive sponsorships, where we can drive
pricing,” said Baer, 53.

Playing in the World Series will bolster the Giants’
season-ticket sales, merchandise orders, endorsement deals and
TV revenue, said Richard Walden, the head of sports business at
JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Private Bank unit. Still, consistently
winning year after year does more for a team’s value than a
single championship appearance, he said. JPMorgan helped the
Giants finance their ballpark, which opened in 2000.

Long Run

“It will translate over time if they maintain the same
discipline with regard to the on-the-field and off-the-field
management of the club,” Walden said. “It doesn’t necessarily
make a huge difference unless you have a long history of
winning.”

“The basic business model is to invite investors who are
passionate about baseball to make an investment and to
recognize, however, that it is not a near-term strategic
investment,” Neukom said. “If you want to have a fund for your
grandchildren to go to private schools in case the public
schools aren’t what you want them to be, then don’t put that
money here.”

Neukom, who became an owner in 1995, orchestrated
Microsoft’s legal defense against antitrust allegations by the
U.S. government in the 1990s. He first started working with
Microsoft after Bill Gates’s father asked Neukom to help the
younger Gates build the software company, which had about a
dozen employees at the time.

Gates’s Pitch

Neukom, 68, also helped give Gates some pointers on
baseball. In the late-1980s, Gates was invited to throw out the
first pitch at a Seattle Mariners game. To practice the day
before, Neukom, Gates and Mariners catcher Dave Valle went into
the woods behind Microsoft’s headquarters for a few warm-up
throws.

“He threw about six pitches, went back to work and the
next night in the Kingdome he threw a nice pitch,” Neukom said.

Neukom took over as the team’s managing general partner
after former Safeway Inc. CEO Peter Magowan stepped down.
Magowan and Baer led the effort to purchase the Giants and build
the ballpark adjacent to San Francisco Bay.

When the Giants sought investors to help keep the team from
moving to Florida in the 1990s, technology executives were an
obvious option because of Silicon Valley’s proximity to San
Francisco, Baer said. The technology hotbed, home to Apple,
Intel and Hewlett-Packard, is about 40 miles from the city.

“We were dialing for dollars,” he said.

Dot-Com Boom

The Giants’ ballpark was the first privately financed major
league venue since Los Angeles’s Dodger Stadium in 1962. The
effort was aided by the dot-com boom, Baer said. It would have
been tougher to get funding to build the ballpark after the
bubble burst in 2000, he said.

The stadium was the first to offer Wi-Fi Internet service
to fans in 2004. Now the Giants are exploring ways to distribute
content on mobile devices and social networks, Neukom said.

When he took over, the team was five years into a six-year
playoff drought and rebuilding after Bonds’s departure. Bonds,
who set home run records as a Giant, saw his career marred by
steroids allegations. He is scheduled for trial in March on
charges of obstruction and lying to a federal grand jury in
2003, when he said he never knowingly took the drugs.

Neukom aimed to create a new vision and wrote a manifesto
called the “Giants Way,” outlining priorities, including
identifying and nurturing talent, teamwork and conditioning.

The Giants’ four starting pitchers in the World Series came
up through its minor league system. That includes two-time Cy
Young Award winner Tim Lincecum, who pitched 5 2/3 innings in
last night’s game. The bearded reliever, Brian Wilson, and
rookie catcher Buster Posey also were drafted by the team.

“We’re very proud of that,” said Neukom, who was showered
with champagne in the team clubhouse after the Giants defeated
the Philadelphia Phillies to win the National League pennant and
earn a spot in the World Series. “If we’re playing good
baseball, lots of other good things will follow.”